


Please Don’t Forget Me

by peridottie



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Stanlon - Freeform, can you guys tell i don’t know how tags on ao3 work, heavily inspired by both the book and the movie dhvssj
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-18 04:00:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13091976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peridottie/pseuds/peridottie
Summary: “Are your parents home?” Mike asked without hesitation. He stretched the phone cord as far as it would go to reach his jacket hung on the back of a chair.“N-No. My dad is in Castle Rock with my mom to meet with some local Rabbis. Oh, Mike, you don’t have to come over, it’s so late, I’ll be fine. Your parents’ll kill you! I just wanted to talk, I swear I’m okay, you don’t have to—““Unlock the back door and your gate. I’ll be there as soon as I can, just hang in there for now, okay? Don’t worry about me.”





	Please Don’t Forget Me

**Author's Note:**

> after i saw the deleted scene with mike and stan outside neibolt i started to HARDCORE ship stanlon, and i just had to whip something up!! i hope you guys enjoy!!

“Huh-lo?” Mike said groggily. He rubbed his face with the free hand that wasn’t holding the phone and glanced at the softly ticking clock looming above his kitchen. Ten past twelve o’clock in the morning. 

“Mike?” a tittering voice on the other line responded, which Mike immediately recognized to be Stan’s. “It’s—It’s Stan. I’m sorry, I know it’s late, I just… I just wanted to talk to you really quick.”

Mike was more awake now, feeling the anxiety dripping off Stan’s muffled voice through the receiver, and sat down on a stool. “Yeah, what’s wrong?” he whispered calmly. “Nightmares?”

Stan whimpered on the other line in response. “Yeah,” he murmured. “I can’t sleep, I’ve been trying forever, s-so I thought… I thought talking to you might help. You always help.”

Mike felt his heart swell, and he sighed. He felt awful for Stan. All of them, even Mike, were haunted by what happened, but almost none as terribly as Stanley. Stan was a nervous wreck to begin with, and after that fateful summer a few years ago, he was an absolute mess. He almost had a stutter like Bill, he was so nervous all the time. The others could at least hide their suffering most of the time, push it back, but not Stan. His eyes were always wide and he was always jumpy, like The Lady would crawl out of her painting and slither her cold, dead hands around his neck. 

“Are your parents home?” Mike asked without hesitation. He stretched the phone cord as far as it would go to reach his jacket hung on the back of a chair. 

“N-No. My dad is in Castle Rock with my mom to meet with some local Rabbis. Oh, Mike, you don’t have to come over, it’s so late, I’ll be fine. Your parents’ll kill you! I just wanted to talk, I swear I’m okay, you don’t have to—“

“Unlock the back door and your gate. I’ll be there as soon as I can, just hang in there for now, okay? Don’t worry about me.”

—

Mike pedaled slowly up to Stan’s driveway, staring up at the large house and glancing at the now-abandoned bird bath. He dismounted and walked his bike up to Stan’s gate which was, in fact, open, and parked it in Stan’s side yard before trodding carefully into the backyard. He slid open the back door carefully and squinted into the darkness. 

“Stan? Stanley?” He saw a light flick on and Stan’s small, shuddering frame standing in front of him. He looked simultaneously terrified and relieved. He practically jumped into Mike’s arms and clung desperately to the other boy’s shirt while he buried his face in his neck. “Shh, it’s okay,” Mike mumbles, closing and locking the door behind him before he scooped Stan up and held him close. 

“Mike, thank you,” Stan whispered once he pulled away. His eyes were puffy, Mike noticed. He’d been crying. 

Mike brushed back some of Stan’s hair and smiled his reassuring smile down at him. “Hey, no problem. Who doesn’t love biking in the middle of the night all the way into the city?”

Stan suddenly looked guilty, but Mike leaned down and pressed a short kiss to his lips. “Hey, I’m kidding,” he whispered. “I insisted. I don’t wanna leave you all alone here. Come on, you wanna go up to your room?” Stan nodded compliantly and, pressed against Mike’s side, walked with him towards the staircase. 

Mike took in his surroundings that, while familiar, were completely jarring. The place was immaculately clean, like it was a movie set, somewhere no humans could realistically live. Every picture frame and painting hung in the house was turned around, and all of the curtains were drawn, but Stan couldn’t leave until he made sure they were all facing away and he touched every single one. Mike said nothing at this, because he understood. Not only was this because of Stan’s OCD, but simply a routine he did to feel safe.

All of the losers had their routines. Ben had to always flip back book pages while he was reading to make sure they hadn’t changed and never went near the kissing bridge. Beverly couldn’t sleep in any room unless it could be locked, or use the bathroom without having a weapon nearby. Richie, on the contrary, couldn’t stand being locked in a room, and always had his bat beside his bed. Bill couldn’t go to bed without making rounds around his house and checking the basement thoroughly with his father’s gun in his hand. Eddie couldn’t sleep without at least three blankets and a nightlight, and refused to even call Neibolt by name. In Mike’s case, he almost always walked into rooms backwards in order to not be ambushed, and never delivered meat without his bolt gun hidden in his bike basket. They were all broken. 

Stan finally made it into his room and Mike closed the door behind them. He sat down on Stan’s bed, the only thing slightly untidy, and watched as Stan crawled into his lap and hugged Mike tightly. It was pitiful, how clearly scared and desperate Stan was, and it only reaffirmed Mike’s decision to come see him was the right one. 

They were both quiet for a moment, simply taking in each other's presence and making sure it was a real and that they were safe with one another. Mike brought a hand up to Stan’s chest and could feel his heartbeat pounding through his thin sleep shirt. 

“Do you wanna talk about it?” he whispered. Stan shook his head in the crook of Mike’s neck, and Mike fell silent again. But Stan eventually sighed and sat back with a sniffle. Mike smiled a little and took Stan’s hand in order to rub his thumb gently over the top of it and soothe his anxious boyfriend. 

“Well, I was just trying to sleep,” Stan began. “But I—I couldn’t. I haven’t slept well in days, but tonight was the worst. I could just… _feel_ it. Feel all the awful shit coming back full force. I turned on the lights so I knew she wouldn’t get me, but it… it was so bright, I couldn’t sleep then, either.” Mike knew exactly what Stan was talking about. Not only was bright light uncomfortable in general, but when IT had been latched onto his face, killing him, their flashlights shined right into his eyes and it became another part of the horror when he had to relive that moment. He urged Stan to continue. 

“But I… I’ve been feeling so scared. I don’t know what’s _happening_ to me, Mike. I’m different and I hate it. Something isn’t right and I can’t… I can’t do anything about it.” 

“What’s happening to you?” Mike said carefully, the worry in his voice ever present. “Do you mean the PTSD? Or the anxiety? You know it won’t feel like this forever. You’re going to be oka—“

“—No! No, Mike, it’s not that! It’s worse! I don’t know how, but it’s worse!” Stan was crying again, and Mike was suddenly scared. He held Stan close to him again and shushed him. He didn’t know why he was so scared, Stan was surely just frazzled. Maybe it was just a really bad episode this time, he’d had those, Mike knew it felt really bad in that moment. But he could fix this. 

Right?

Mike cupped Stan’s chin and started to press his lips softly over his scars, but Stan only cried harder, and Mike recoiled instantly, horrified in himself for making Stan so upset. He was starting to get extremely worried. 

“Stan? Stan, what’s wrong? What happened? Please, you gotta tell me. Let me help you, Stan. I love you, please just tell me.” Stan was still crying, but he lifted himself to face Mike again, wiping his eyes furiously. 

“The sc-scars!” he brayed. “They’re… they’re going away!” Mike furrowed his eyebrows, and Stan seemed to read Mike’s mind. “I always th-thought that I _wanted_ them to g-g-go away, and I d-do, but it’s…they aren’t!”

“My p-parents, my teachers, they can’t… they can’t see them. They never could. And it’s d-driven me insane, you know that. That they don’t ever see what’s wrong with me, even when it’s so fucking p-puh-plain on my face! But I… they’re going away, but not really. I didn’t even _notice_ at first, that they were fading, but they _were_. And I was so happy, that they were finally going away, but… but it feels _wrong_. Like they shouldn’t be going away. And when I go outside, little kids still stare at me and I can see them pointing at my scars, but their parents… their parents say th-th-they’re… th-they’re…” He started to sob again, and put his face in his hands, while Mike felt an increasing pit in his stomach. He clenched his fist to feel the scar on the palm of his hand, still fresh, still visible. 

Mike focused hard on Stan’s cheeks and, sure enough, in the moonlight, the scars looked the same to Mike as they did the first time Stan took off the bandages. Still a deep pink and unevenly textured and all up and down his cheeks. “I can see them,” he murmured, not even to Stanley, but himself. “I can see them…”

“And I k-keep forgetting things!” Stan wailed, not hearing Mike. “It’s always been a little fuzzy, but I can hardly remember anything now! Sometimes I… I do my routines, but I don’t know why I do it! Something’s wrong, Mike. Something is _wrong_ …” He finally started to sob quietly, and slumped against Mike in defeat. Mike held Stan tightly, not only for Stan, but for his own comfort. His heart was beating out of his chest like it was going to explode. He wanted to scream, or cry, or pry Stan off of him to shake him and snap him out of it, but he couldn’t. So he sat there and pressed his face into Stan’s neck and tried to cling to him. He knew the rest of the losers were forgetting, too, but not Stan. He prayed that it wouldn’t get to Stan and leave him the only one with the memories and the scars as fresh as the day he got them. He didn’t know if he could take that. 

But he didn’t tell Stan this. Instead of confessing what he knew was happening, and begging Stan not to forget like he wanted to, he said, “Stan, nothing’s wrong. Things are finally getting _better_. You’re just not used to it. You know how they say, time heals? It really does. And you’re getting better. Kids are just… they like to see little things wrong with people adults are too polite to point out. And you’re not forgetting completely, just moving on. It’s okay.”

Stan sniffed and sat back to look at Mike, who tried his best to keep his face calm and reassuring. “You promise?”

Mike lied without a second thought. Before he could let himself stop the words from coming out, stop himself being so selfless for once, he said, “Yeah, babe. I promise.”

Stan instantly relaxed into Mike’s arms. He sighed and nuzzled into his boyfriend’s neck before gently pressing his lips under Mike’s jaw and along his neck. “I love you, Mike,” he whispered. Mike swallowed the lump of fear and, for some reason, heartbreak in his throat before burying his hand in Stan’s hair. 

“I love you too, Stan. So much.”

—

_This is an excerpt from what is now referred to as “The Derry Interludes,” but officially titled as “Derry: An Unauthorized Town History” on the front cover, and even more lovingly called “Derry: A Look Through Hell’s Back Door” by the author. This is a segment of a page that now resides in pieces in a landfill somewhere, after author Michael Hanlon threw it away immediately after writing it._

_January 28th, 2015_

…And that had been it. Stan never mentioned IT, or The Lady, or any of it after that night. It had all gone with a bang—his feelings and memories exploding after a long buildup, and then fizzling out and disappearing. It was like projectile vomiting up your guts during the last bout of a particularly terrible case of the stomach flu and being completely healthy when you woke up the next day. 

Stanley didn’t stop being a nervous wreck, far from it, but he eventually forgot everything.I watched every day as Stan, in a dreamlike sequence that lasted about a year, became a different man. 

Note that I said man. He never lost the anxiety or the trauma, but those wet, terrified, boyish eyes turned into hazy, tired, old ones. He was still miserable with his parents, and he still had me help him study, and we all did things together, but he really was different after that. I was different, too, I suppose, but I still felt it, even way back then. Maybe I should have told him what I knew was happening. Perhaps, just perhaps, it would have done him some good. But I couldn’t risk it. He was finally a little… happier, forgetting. Not by much, but I certainly noticed the change. It happened with all of them, all of them who were still in Derry at the time, anyways. But I doubt telling any of them, especially Stan, would have done them any good. It would have just added more stress to the subject, which it was already drenched in. And I couldn’t have done that to them. 

I still hold some hope in my heart that he hasn’t completely forgotten, but I often think he has. When he left for college, he promised to call.

He never did. 

I suppose that maybe I should have called him, that maybe we were both playing the waiting game with eachother, but I was too afraid. I still am, even now, except I could handle it now. But I think that if 18-year-old Michael Hanlon heard Stanley Uris’s voice on the other end of the phone say _Hello?_ in that same tittering way as that night, and if Michael said _Stan? Hey, it’s Mike, how are you? I miss you_ , and Stanley said _Mike? Well, I’m sorry, but I don’t believe I know a Mike Hanlon_ , that I would have been thoroughly crushed. 

I’ve lived through more heartbreak since then, and I should be able to handle such a response, If I am forced to call them and break the news. I have all of their numbers right here, Stanley’s at the very top. I have rehearsed exactly what I’m going to say to each and every one of them, and I’ve rehearsed all possible scenarios for their responses, and I’ve rehearsed dealing with said responses, and so on. 

Yes, I should be able to handle it. But I don’t think I will.


End file.
